I like to keep this a happy and positive space and had all these plans to come home and write up this post about how I was going "streaking" and being all kitchy and fun with it. But frankly, I'm not totally in the mood right now.
Earlier this year I opened up on the blog about my psoriasis but haven't really given an update since then, since, frankly there isn't much of one to give. It's still there. It still sucks. It still upsets me and sometimes it upsets me more than others, which I'd rather not dig deeper into here, but let's just say there are good days and bad days.
One of the things that has been keeping me positive this entire past year has been the dermatologist that I began seeing last year when I moved to Atlanta. I have absolutely loved her and she is the first (of many) dermatologists that I have seen that I have connected with and who has made me feel this is manageable. She made me feel comfortable through trying my first round of injectable medications and fought like hell for me a couple different times in trying to get a new medication to be approved by my health insurance. The fact that the medication my doctor has wanted me to try and has believed is best for me has continually been declined by random people in a health insurance office somewhere who don't know me or my body, is one of the things that has been infuriating to me over the past year.
To be told what medication I need to inject into my body by a faceless nameless entity is one of the most frustrating and demeaning things that I've experienced. No they haven't said I have to but when they say to my doctor's recommendation, "Hmmm... no, we don't want Katelyn to use that. First she has to try ABC" and then when you DO that, and they THEN say, "Okay well that's good but now we're changing our minds and we ACTUALLY also want you to try XYZ..." It just sucks.
Anyways, my dermatologist has been amazing through it all and I love her.
And then when I came home today from work and got my mail, I received a letter dated November 17th saying that as of November 1st, my dermatologist is no longer covered by my health insurance. With no explanation it then gives me instructions on how to find a new dermatologist and lets me know if I would like to short term continue my care with her, than I need to file an appeal by November 1st. SUPER helpful information to receive on November 30th. To say I am frustrated and upset is an understatement. So, yeah, tomorrow I will be making some phone calls (if I can find the time at work.... *sigh*....) and trying to figure that all out.
So, sorry for the rant, but I'm just in a down mood right now.
But anyways, on a more positive note, we have been having some amazing weather in Atlanta since Thanksgiving. I continued my happy Thanksgiving day with a really nice, relaxing and fun weekend in Atlanta. It was nice to have a long weekend in one place and the weather certainly did not hurt at all.
AND, Thanksgiving Day officially kicked off holiday season and another year of GOING STREAKING!!! WOOO!!!!!
The past two years I have participated (with mild success) in the Runner's World Run Streak of running at least 1 mile every day between Thanksgiving and New Year's. This year, I decided to streak again but make it just an exercise streak. Do some sort of sweat session every day from Thanksgiving to New Years - even if it just yoga or a small workout or getting outside for a walk - doing something active every day!
So how am I doing so far?
Day 1, Thursday November 26: Thanksgiving Half Marathon.
Day 2, Friday November 27: Leg day at the gym.
It seemed like a good idea in my mind since I had done upper body workouts earlier in the week to do a leg workout on Friday. However once I got there and started working out, I started having doubts about whether or not it was a good thought to blast out my legs the day after running a hilly 13 miles. I wasn't particularly sore from the half marathon, but the smart side of my mind knows that you can still be recovering even if you aren't feeling it. My biggest fear right now is that I will get hurt in the off season and I am trying to be careful to find the right balance of working out hard and also not doing anything dumb that will get myself injured. It's not worth it. The day after long runs or really tough workouts it is better to swim, do yoga, etc. So I ended up doing a little less legwork than I originally thought, stretching, and then hanging in the hot tub for a bit.
Day 3, Saturday November 28: Hike up Stone Mountain (1 mile up, 1 mile down) + My longest bike ride to date of 35 miles (a distance PR of 5 miles and time-on-bike PR of 24 minutes!)
Hiking Stone Mountain was really fun because I did with people from Movers + Pacers and that group is always a good time. Additionally, I had never done it before so it was nice to do something that I have been meaning to do since I moved here and never actually did!
I was also SO proud of my bike ride and really had to push myself to get the 35 miles in. I have been sore these past few days and the prevailing thought when I finished the ride was, "How the heck am I going to do 20 more miles and then run a half marathon?!?" BUT, I have had those thoughts before and it just goes to show you want training and building up can do for you!
Day 4, Sunday November 29: Pilates Class
I've been trying to take that whole "work on your core" thing to heart and I have heard Pilates is a great way to get that core workout in so I spent my Sunday checking out a class at my gym. I am intrigued enough to keep going and the class had great music so I could be back!
Day 5, Monday November 30: Swim class in the morning followed by a 3 mile run after work.
My swim workout consisted of a 1000 meter warm up (600 swim, 400 kick with fins) then 3 times through a set of 200 meter choice swim, 6x50s on 1:00 minute, then a 100 cool down. You actually were supposed to do it through 4 times but because of the time I needed to be at work, I hopped out of the water after 3 which gave me a total distance of 2200 meters, which isn't bad for a Monday morning! For reference, the distance of the Half Ironman will be about 2000 meters. Here is my picture of me when I got into the gym in the morning wearing my massive shirt from the Thanksgiving Day Half.
After work I joined up with Run Smyrna, a running group that meets on Monday nights right in my neighborhood for runs of various distances. I opted for the shortest distance of anyone out there tonight with a 5K run that I finished at an 8:30 pace. It definitely was a challenging pace for me but the good thing about Run Smyrna is that there are some super fast people in that group so it helps me to be chasing them. I was happy to see that when I got back, since I ran the 2nd half on my own, it was actually at a faster pace than when I was running with a group! I felt like I was slowing but I guess not. I ran negative splits for the 3 miles.
And with that, the first 5 days of my exercise streak are underway. Please jump in and join me from now until New Years and I hope that you had an awesome Monday back at work after the holiday.
I appreciate and am thankful for all my readers out there and have loved connecting with and getting to know more of you off the blog lately so thank you all for that!
Earlier this year I opened up on the blog about my psoriasis but haven't really given an update since then, since, frankly there isn't much of one to give. It's still there. It still sucks. It still upsets me and sometimes it upsets me more than others, which I'd rather not dig deeper into here, but let's just say there are good days and bad days.
One of the things that has been keeping me positive this entire past year has been the dermatologist that I began seeing last year when I moved to Atlanta. I have absolutely loved her and she is the first (of many) dermatologists that I have seen that I have connected with and who has made me feel this is manageable. She made me feel comfortable through trying my first round of injectable medications and fought like hell for me a couple different times in trying to get a new medication to be approved by my health insurance. The fact that the medication my doctor has wanted me to try and has believed is best for me has continually been declined by random people in a health insurance office somewhere who don't know me or my body, is one of the things that has been infuriating to me over the past year.
To be told what medication I need to inject into my body by a faceless nameless entity is one of the most frustrating and demeaning things that I've experienced. No they haven't said I have to but when they say to my doctor's recommendation, "Hmmm... no, we don't want Katelyn to use that. First she has to try ABC" and then when you DO that, and they THEN say, "Okay well that's good but now we're changing our minds and we ACTUALLY also want you to try XYZ..." It just sucks.
Anyways, my dermatologist has been amazing through it all and I love her.
And then when I came home today from work and got my mail, I received a letter dated November 17th saying that as of November 1st, my dermatologist is no longer covered by my health insurance. With no explanation it then gives me instructions on how to find a new dermatologist and lets me know if I would like to short term continue my care with her, than I need to file an appeal by November 1st. SUPER helpful information to receive on November 30th. To say I am frustrated and upset is an understatement. So, yeah, tomorrow I will be making some phone calls (if I can find the time at work.... *sigh*....) and trying to figure that all out.
So, sorry for the rant, but I'm just in a down mood right now.
But anyways, on a more positive note, we have been having some amazing weather in Atlanta since Thanksgiving. I continued my happy Thanksgiving day with a really nice, relaxing and fun weekend in Atlanta. It was nice to have a long weekend in one place and the weather certainly did not hurt at all.
AND, Thanksgiving Day officially kicked off holiday season and another year of GOING STREAKING!!! WOOO!!!!!
The past two years I have participated (with mild success) in the Runner's World Run Streak of running at least 1 mile every day between Thanksgiving and New Year's. This year, I decided to streak again but make it just an exercise streak. Do some sort of sweat session every day from Thanksgiving to New Years - even if it just yoga or a small workout or getting outside for a walk - doing something active every day!
So how am I doing so far?
Day 1, Thursday November 26: Thanksgiving Half Marathon.
Day 2, Friday November 27: Leg day at the gym.
It seemed like a good idea in my mind since I had done upper body workouts earlier in the week to do a leg workout on Friday. However once I got there and started working out, I started having doubts about whether or not it was a good thought to blast out my legs the day after running a hilly 13 miles. I wasn't particularly sore from the half marathon, but the smart side of my mind knows that you can still be recovering even if you aren't feeling it. My biggest fear right now is that I will get hurt in the off season and I am trying to be careful to find the right balance of working out hard and also not doing anything dumb that will get myself injured. It's not worth it. The day after long runs or really tough workouts it is better to swim, do yoga, etc. So I ended up doing a little less legwork than I originally thought, stretching, and then hanging in the hot tub for a bit.
Day 3, Saturday November 28: Hike up Stone Mountain (1 mile up, 1 mile down) + My longest bike ride to date of 35 miles (a distance PR of 5 miles and time-on-bike PR of 24 minutes!)
Hiking Stone Mountain was really fun because I did with people from Movers + Pacers and that group is always a good time. Additionally, I had never done it before so it was nice to do something that I have been meaning to do since I moved here and never actually did!
I was also SO proud of my bike ride and really had to push myself to get the 35 miles in. I have been sore these past few days and the prevailing thought when I finished the ride was, "How the heck am I going to do 20 more miles and then run a half marathon?!?" BUT, I have had those thoughts before and it just goes to show you want training and building up can do for you!
Day 4, Sunday November 29: Pilates Class
I've been trying to take that whole "work on your core" thing to heart and I have heard Pilates is a great way to get that core workout in so I spent my Sunday checking out a class at my gym. I am intrigued enough to keep going and the class had great music so I could be back!
Day 5, Monday November 30: Swim class in the morning followed by a 3 mile run after work.
My swim workout consisted of a 1000 meter warm up (600 swim, 400 kick with fins) then 3 times through a set of 200 meter choice swim, 6x50s on 1:00 minute, then a 100 cool down. You actually were supposed to do it through 4 times but because of the time I needed to be at work, I hopped out of the water after 3 which gave me a total distance of 2200 meters, which isn't bad for a Monday morning! For reference, the distance of the Half Ironman will be about 2000 meters. Here is my picture of me when I got into the gym in the morning wearing my massive shirt from the Thanksgiving Day Half.
After work I joined up with Run Smyrna, a running group that meets on Monday nights right in my neighborhood for runs of various distances. I opted for the shortest distance of anyone out there tonight with a 5K run that I finished at an 8:30 pace. It definitely was a challenging pace for me but the good thing about Run Smyrna is that there are some super fast people in that group so it helps me to be chasing them. I was happy to see that when I got back, since I ran the 2nd half on my own, it was actually at a faster pace than when I was running with a group! I felt like I was slowing but I guess not. I ran negative splits for the 3 miles.
And with that, the first 5 days of my exercise streak are underway. Please jump in and join me from now until New Years and I hope that you had an awesome Monday back at work after the holiday.
I appreciate and am thankful for all my readers out there and have loved connecting with and getting to know more of you off the blog lately so thank you all for that!
OMFG HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES. I seriously spent all of yesterday panicking that my orthopedic surgeon was no longer covered by my insurance because they no longer list him as in-network, and then I called my insurance company and they confirmed that, and then when I got to my appointment to see him yesterday the receptionist told me the insurance companies have been telling loads of patients that, even though it's not true. WTF, guys.
ReplyDeleteWhat made it all 10x worse was going on the website and literally not being able to figure anything out because they don't actually breakdown costs. It's all "They charged this, we cover this, you owe this" but not saying what anything is for or what their negotiated costs are, etc. I loathe health insurance practices in this country because they make it so effing difficult to advocate for yourself!!!
On a more positive note...I need to look into this streaking thing. Will it count if I start today instead?!
Yes! Join the fun Christina! And I can't even handle how much I hate my health insurance. It's an unhealthy rage.
DeleteSorry for your insurance struggles. Health insurance sucks.
ReplyDeleteI've done the Run Streak the past two years but opted for a modified streak this year as well. I'm running, walking, or biking a mile plus a day and I love it.
Thank you! And yes, this year I am all about the modified version - I am just going for some sort of exercise every day! That's goal enough for me right now :)
ReplyDelete